


The Truest Pirate

by BuzzCat



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Late Night Conversations, Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25096876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuzzCat/pseuds/BuzzCat
Summary: Set mid-AWE, while sailing to the lockerThe guilt is slowly eating Elizabeth from the inside out, what she did and how much she would do it again. And it is from an unexpected quarter that the meaning of her decision is made clear.
Relationships: Hector Barbossa & Elizabeth Swann
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	The Truest Pirate

It was late. Late enough she should have been asleep, should have been laying beside Will in their bunk, late enough she should have been asleep thinking sweet thoughts of her fiancé. But Elizabeth couldn’t. She couldn’t do that, not when Will still looked at her like that. Like each glance cost him, pained him. Like each time he saw her, he regretted meeting her at all. That was what awaited her in their bunk, and it was why Elizabeth still sat on deck, ignoring her shivers in favor of taking in the endless sky. The night was quiet, the sea still. It was a night perfect for quiet contemplation, and Elizabeth would have given anything for a battle. Time to think meant time to think about Jack, about what she’d done. About what he was facing and where they were going, because of her.

Elizabeth did not like dwelling on those thoughts. It was the past, actions she could not change and would not take back. She had saved herself, saved the crew, saved Will. But first and foremost, she’d saved herself. It was the first time that piracy made Elizabeth clench with regret, made her sick with guilt.

Elizabeth did not like calm nights.

And apparently this was not a calm night after all, as boots slowly strode across the planks. There was a familiar sound, the crunch of an apple. and her fears eased.

“You look troubled, Miss Turner.”

She glared at him. “It’s Miss Swann.”

“Apologies, Miss Swann.”

Barbossa leaned on the railing beside her, looking not at the ocean but at her. She said nothing as he finished his apple, as he threw the core overboard. His gaze did not falter and if had been anyone else, Elizabeth would have worried. Lingering gazes meant trouble, meant seduction or mutiny. But she was not captain and this was Barbossa, who in his time alive (again) had sought only to eat apples. No, his stare did not spark the caution another might, but it was by no means comfortable.

“What?” Elizabeth glanced at him, even if he could not see her face in the night.

She could hear his sneering grin as he spoke, “I was just taking in the strangest of sights. The downfall of Jack Sparrow.”

“Beg pardon?”

Barbossa looked out at the water, nonchalant as he continued. “There’s not a pirate in these waters who doesn’t have one grudge or another to settle against Jack Sparrow, myself included. I just never thought I’d meet the one to personally deliver him to the eternal suffering of the Locker.”

His gaze slid towards her, a cackle hiding in his voice. Elizabeth did not look at him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He was teasing her. “Oh, don’t ye?”

“Jack went down with the ship. Elected to stay behind to—”

“—to give you all a chance, yes I’ve heard that before.” He waved his hand dismissively at the words, like they were now dismissed from his presence. Barbossa leaned forward, yellowed teeth on full display and beard still dripping with juice from the apple. “But you forget, missy, I was Jack’s first mate. I knew him years before the sea was even a glimmer in your eye, and I know he would _never_ give up his skin so easy.”

Barbossa took in Elizabeth’s face, the shame she couldn’t quite push down. He continued,

“I also know that you were the last person aboard the ship. The last person to see Jack Sparrow alive. A distinctive honor, that. But you know what they say. Last person to see them alive,” he paused, relishing the effect, “is the first person to see them dead.”

“Jack—”

“Would have been the first in the boat if he could help it, which means whatever you did, he couldn’t help it. And judging by the way your Mister Turner looks like he tasted something soured every time he looks at you,” Elizabeth felt her stomach drop, “I’d say whatever you did to Jack put him in a place he couldn’t help it. A distraction, if you will. So, what it? Lock him in the brig? Tie him to helm?”

Elizabeth said nothing still. She couldn’t. She couldn’t tell Barbossa, of all people, her great shame. Not before she told Will, not before they rescued Jack. But she had also had quite enough of Barbossa seeing too much, knowing too well.

“You were his first mate, what would you have done? With the kraken bearing down on Jack, on the _Pearl_?”

“I’d have killed him myself. To the devil with Jack and his dealings with Jones. In short,” Barbossa grinned at her and Elizabeth hated it, hated the similarities he was building and how they built all too easily, “in short, I’d have done exactly what you did.”

“I didn’t—” But Elizabeth couldn’t finish it. She had done it. As surely as if she’d plunged the knife herself, she had killed Jack. She’d shackled him to the mast and left him for the kraken, left him a meal for a ravenous beast and rowed away to freedom for herself.

Barbossa sighed, “You’ll have to square that with your Mister Turner, if you want to save anything there. And you’ll have to square that with yourself.” He threw an arm around her, moldering feather dusting across her forehead, and Elizabeth barely controlled her gag. Barbossa ignored it. “You’re a pirate now, Miss Swann. And you’ll do well to remember that the first rule of pirating is to save your own skin.”

“Like Jack?”

Barbossa’s face wrinkled at the mention. “Like me.”

And he was right. Jack was a pirate infamous throughout the Caribbean, but there was a heart there. He had come back, when they were facing the kraken. He was a good man, no matter how deeply he buried that fact in rum-soaked illusions. But Barbossa had no such qualms. The tales he told, the tales that were told of him, Barbossa was motivated exclusively by personal gain, typically in the form of gold. He clawed and fought for it and when it came to the hard choice, he chose himself every time.

It didn’t matter that Jack was the one to have sneered the word in her face, Barbossa was the one to show it every day.

_Pirate._

**Author's Note:**

> Barbossa is a fave because he is unrepentant about being a selfish pirate who is always running his own agenda, and that's the only explanation I have for why this exists


End file.
